SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

what is it with WS being so mean and rude to their BS when they are having an affair?

I usually answer this question by citing the book "Not Just Friends." It describes how some cheaters compartmentalize and continue to think well of their spouses, while others need to vilify the spouse in order to give themselves permission to have an affair. The former type (and I was one of these) insulate themselves from the guilt by treating the A as something unreal and completely separate from the primary relationship. The second type, whom she calls "monagamous infidels," can only feel bonded to one person at a time. In order to attach to someone new, they first have to break the bond with the spouse by putting them down and rewriting the history of the marriage.

I also think you're on track with the speculation that they're trying to start a fight. If the WS can get you to snap or yell at them, then they can tell themselves that they're being mistreated and use that to justify seeking ego kibbles from someone else.

As a WS did you hold any bitterness toward your BS?

If you did, was it in regards to pre A issues, the fact that your A had come to an end or that they would not just get over it?

I didn't have bitterness, but I would say I had hopelessness. SI wasn't around to tell me how ludicrous my expectations were for "getting over it." After about five months, I asked him if there was really any point in staying together if we were so unhappy. I didn't blame him for his feelings, but I was moving towards acceptance that I broke the relationship and maybe it wasn't fixable. This forced him towards rugsweeping, and it's one of my greatest regrets.

My husband (#2, not the original XWH) passed away not long ago. I was sending texts to his friends when I came across what appeared to be an EA with a coworker. I have no idea if this became a PA or not.

I "knew" that he loved me and loved being married to me - without a doubt, until now. He really would do anything for me. Was this all a lie? Or can you compartmentalize to the point that you really do love your spouse but still hide affairs?

No, it wasn't a lie. Speaking as a compartmentalizer, I never lost my passion, admiration, or affection for my BH. It was all real. That doesn't excuse my poor boundaries when I allowed someone else into my emotional life, but that was due to holes in me, not anything lacking in how I saw him. Even at my worst, I never had to fake feeling in love.

Waywards,

What did you think of your spouse when they told you they felt sexually inadequate or second best after Dday ? Did that level of vulnerability from your BS actually turn you off and repel you ?

I really don't know how honest to be with my wife.

No way username. It made me feel like shit to hear it. I was very honest with my ex concerning details that he wanted to know and I have no doubt it made him feel inadequate. I hated every second of it. But, his vulnerability with those feelings didn't turn me off, it was the opposite. I wanted to show him just how much he really did turn me on. If anything it motivated me to be more enthusiastic (but not in a forced way) just no holding back.

Foreverlabeled,

I don't exactly understand your post.

You said "I have no doubt it made him feel inadequate".

Did you actually tell your husband that sex with AP was better than sex with him then try to win him back by showing him increased desire ?

Not "win" him back. Just tried to show that I did actually desire him. That it wasn't his lack of whatever sexually (or anything else for that matter) that was the cause of my cheating. Because, for a while he struggled somewhat like you do taking the sexual aspects hard.

And no, I didn't tell him the sex was better. I was honest about details that was extremely hard to tell and no doubt hard to hear.

Foreverlabeled,

Thank you for responding.

For me the sexual details do not necessarily make me feel inadequate but some of the sexual details were disgusting. My wife did some sex acts with her AP that were disgusting to me and make it hard to look at her sometimes but those sex acts were not as bad as feeling inadequate due to comparing myself to her AP and running mind movies in my head about how great their sex must have been.

I did get some answers on the quality of their sex and I am 99 percent sure she is lying and minimizing about the quality of her sex life with the POSAP because she never admitted that anything was better with him than me. I just don't believe that a person can have sex with someone for a year and not have anything be better with them than another partner. Everyone brings something great to a year long sex life especially if it is an illicit, exciting affair with an attractive person.

Did your husband ever get over feeling sexually inadequate ? If so how did he do it ?

Honestly I don't know if or how. Our attempts at R were very rough and largely unhealthy. I left the M just over a year after dday and sadly my H wasn't interested in real healing.

One of the details I was truthful about was admitting the AP was bigger than him. I mean what guy, let alone husband, betrayed husband! wants to hear that? But. Let me stop your train of thought right there. The AP could have been smaller and I still would have engaged in my affair. It wasn't the deciding factor or what kept me around.

I think most waywards will tell you that what keeps them around in affairs has so little to do with what the AP has to offer.

My heart sunk when I read that your AP was bigger. I have been through the exact same thing. It was devastating to me. My wife tried to convince me it didn't feel any better during intercourse or make sex any better. I never believed her. I didn't believe most of her sexual detail answers except the ones that could have been polygraphed which was discussed and threatened.

I know these are personal questions but since this is an anonymous forum I am going to ask you anyway because the answers may help me:

Did intercourse with your AP during your A feel more satisfying than intercourse with your BH during the A?

Did intercourse with your BH after the affair feel less satisfying than intercourse with your AP during your A ?

Most importantly, did intercourse with your BH after the affair feel less satisfying than intercourse with your BH before your A ? ( This is the one that kills me because I now worry that since she had bigger she is now bored with mine or less excited by mine. )

[This message edited by Username123 at 3:36 PM, March 30th (Tuesday)]

Most importantly, did intercourse with your BH after the affair feel less satisfying than intercourse with your BH before your A ? ( This is the one that kills me because I now worry that since she had bigger she is now bored with mine or less excited by mine. )

Was she a virgin when you two met? If not don't you think its possible she's had bigger before, and smaller too?

I think far too many guys put too much stock in their junk and highly underestimate the vaginas abilities to receive pleasure from a size point of view.

I have encountered various sizes throughout my sexual history, they all felt great. Sex just feels good, ya know? Its only boring if you make it boring. Size really doesn't factor in, at least for me, unless we are talking one extreme of the spectrum to the other.

But to answer your question, after my affair no I didn't feel bored or disappointed with him and his peen. I didn't daydream about having a bigger dick back in my life. I didn't wish his was bigger. My vagina couldn't tell the difference between the two and didn't miss out on any pleasure.

foreverlabeled,

My wife was not a virgin before we met but she was not very experienced either and she told me I was the biggest she had before we were married.

You wrote: "My vagina couldn't tell the difference between the two and didn't miss out on any pleasure". This is similar to what my wife told me. Actually, she told me she felt more pressure on vaginal walls and felt nothing different deeper in her vagina with her AP. She said this resulted in no increased pleasured. I don't really buy it. I don't really buy that she or any woman could feel increased pressure on her vaginal walls but not feel increased pleasure but maybe I am just being paranoid.

I do buy that a woman can feel nothing deeper in her vagina from a longer penis because I have read many times that almost all of the nerve ending of the vagina are in the first few inches.

I also understand that a woman's vagina can stretch to accommodate different penises and the amount of stretch, type and quantity of lubrication produced by a woman changes depending on the time of month it is for her.

Obviously, I am obsessed with this topic.

I even asked my sister if she thought size mattered and she said yes which didn't help.

I think different women have different opinions on this topic. Some women think size matters and others don't.

It is extremely painful that my wife fucked another man for a year with a bigger dick than mine. It makes me feel sexually inadequate and ruins my desire and ability to have sex with her now.

There are other reasons I can't seem to enjoy sex with her but this seems to be the primary reason.

The other reasons are feelings of disgust at some of the things she did with her AP and the mind movies that invade my brain.

[This message edited by Username123 at 3:19 PM, March 31st (Wednesday)]

May i ask a question thats been asked a million times im sure.... why stay with your bs after dday? Your now free to leave and be with the affair partner or whoever you want. You wanted to cheat and be with someone else so why choose your bs? What happens in your mind?

Its mostly cake eating. We don't really want to change our lives, we don't really want to be free or be with someone else (in a commitment or otherwise). Granted there are legit exit affairs, but when that bubble pops most of us come back to reality and we choose our BSs because you were never meant to find out.

I haven’t posted here in a long while. Here goes...

I suppose most waywards don’t actually intend to leave their spouse for the AP.

So there must be the realization that the A can’t continue forever. Was the whole thing flying by the seat of your pants? Or in the back of your mind, did you consider maybe you would eventually want to leave for the AP? Did you expect your A to last as long as it did? After each time having sex, did you think it would be your last? Or did you know you were going to keep it up?

I’m not sure I’m getting to the root of my main inquiry. You’re having this illicit A that you know won’t last. So did you have some sort of timeline in your head for how long you wanted to engage in it? Or did you not have any sort of plan at all?

I had a plan. OM was moving to the other side of the country in four months. We both knew there was no future in it, and I thought that would prevent it from getting too intense. I was wrong about the intensity, but I never changed my mind about the expiration date.

Ironically, the impermanence that should have reminded me the A wasn't worth the price was exactly why I assumed that the price wouldn't be too high.

Underserving, you ask:

You’re having this illicit A that you know won’t last. So did you have some sort of timeline in your head for how long you wanted to engage in it?

I had an intense long-distance EA that was not a PA, but I really suspect the mechanism is no different.

Affairs are like addictions--I would argue they ARE addictions.

I don't know if you ever had a dependency on something like cigarettes or alcohol or any kind of medication, but the thought process is exactly the same as those kinds of addictions.

You realize it is bad for you, hurts yourself and those around you. You know it has to stop. The best part of you wants to stop. But actually stopping means cutting off something that has been propping you up, filling some hole you feel you have, making you feel good in that instant. You already felt bad because you feel like you have a hole, you've been filling or plugging that hole with the AP's attention, now you try to cut off the AP and you feel momentarily worse. And you really want that bad feeling to go away, so you get another hit of attention from AP. Just for today.

So then you set a date: tomorrow, next week, next month, whatever. And when tomorrow actually comes, well, rinse wash repeat.

There is no long term plan. You can KNOW the affair has to end, agree that it should, think you want it to -- but only tomorrow. For today you'll just get that hole filled for one more day.

Rinse, wash, repeat. Yesterday -- regret that. Today -- get soothed from your regret with a little hit of attention or whatever. Tomorrow -- well, that's when you'll get a grip.

But when tomorrow actually comes, it's today, and you are still in the affair today. And you promsie yorself you'll get a grip tomorrow.

So then you set a date: tomorrow, next week, next month, whatever. And when tomorrow actually comes, well, rinse wash repeat.

There is no long term plan. You can KNOW the affair has to end, agree that it should, think you want it to -- but only tomorrow. For today you'll just get that hole filled for one more day.

Rinse, wash, repeat. Yesterday -- regret that. Today -- get soothed from your regret with a little hit of attention or whatever. Tomorrow -- well, that's when you'll get a grip.

But when tomorrow actually comes, it's today, and you are still in the affair today. And you promsie yorself you'll get a grip tomorrow

Thank you for you reply! It has been very insightful. I do think this is what it was like for my WH. Even breaking it off a few times only to resume it a few days later.

I have one more question.

My WH stopped the physical aspect of the A after only a couple of months, but then continued the emotional part of it for much longer. I know this for a fact. It’s not that I’m not glad he stopped it, I guess I just don’t understand why? She wanted it to continue. I had no idea what he was doing so he would have gotten away with it. It just seems so out of the ordinary for a male wayward to give up the sex, but keep the emotional part going, all of his own accord. Curious if anyone wants to take a shot as to why you think that is?

Underserving -

First, let me say Owl's answer is similar to mine. There was no plan of anything, it was always whatever was happening in the moment or the day. WS are often extremely avoidant. We push down the things that make the fantasy less fun. If you were doing crack for example - you wouldn't want the antidote for the high, right? The antidote for the high in an affair is reality. So, you can't look too close at anything that is reality.

As for ending the physical - my husband did the same thing.

I don't know exactly why. My affair was long distance, so other than a short trip in the middle it was conducted virtually. So, the experience was completely different.

For him, he saw her all the time. Probably had sex with her as often as he did with me. His affair (hard to pin point WHEN the EA began) physically began in the early spring of 2019. The last time they had sex was the early spring of 2020 - right before the lock down in march.

I think the physical stopped in his case because I was around all the time for about 2 months. From the end of March until June I don't think we were really apart other than the infrequent times I went grocery shopping and half the time he went with me.

After that the sex didn't resume (Poly confirmed, she confirmed), but they continued the other aspects of their relationship until I discovered it in October 2020.

His story is that he was trying to let it fizzle out without upsetting her because he was trying to avoid the inevitable fall out. He would have had to explain to me firing her and nothing would have made sense because she did a really good job at what we had her doing. I also believe he was starting to feel guilty and some of the reality was starting to set in. He didn't want me to find out, and he wanted to stay married. For him, ending the physical affair was ending it. I disagree with that, but...

I also think that the flickers of who the AP was had started settling in and some of the illusion bubble had popped for him. The OBS told me he found something they wrote to each other in email during the summer of 2020 where she was directly asking why they couldn't get "together". (Actually what she said was filthy). His reply was "I just can't right now, I am sorry". He can't really explain it to me in a way I relate to, so I am not sure if this is helpful or if I am just commiserating.

[This message edited by hikingout at 10:26 AM, April 2nd (Friday)]